


In Keeping

by AsagiStilinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe- Werewolves are still a thing, Childhood Friends, Fluff, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-13 12:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12983886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: Every year when he was a kid, Stiles would find an ornament in his mailbox before Christmas, but all of a sudden, it just.... stopped, now, years later, it's started again, and just so happens to coincide with an old freind coming back to town





	In Keeping

**Author's Note:**

> Another one for 12 Days Of Sterek! I.. actually don't really remember how I thought of this one, it was the first one I thought of for this year's event even though I didn't write it right away

"Scott! Scott! You're never going to believe this!"

Scott knew from the moment he had first gotten the call from his freind that he was excited about something- that was about as obvious as a clear day

But he wasn't sure about exactly what Stiles was so enthused by

Even now, having opened the door to find the witch standing in front of him, dangling an ornament in front of his face, he STILL wasn't quite sure why he was so excited

"Um.... you got a Superman ornament?"

"Well... I mean... technically, but it's HOW I got the Superman ornament!"

"It... got to your house early...?"

Stiles rolled his eyes- with practically his entire body, mind you- and pushed past Scott into the apartment, crashing down on the couch and continuing to dangle the Superman ornament in front of him

"It's SOA!!! It's SOA Scott!!!!"

"SOA...?"

"Secret Ornament Admirer?"

"Right...." Scott said slowly, carefully sitting down next to his freind

"Stiles, are you talking about the same 'Secret Ornament Admirer' from seven years ago?"

"Yes!! He's back!"

Scott... did not look impressed

"Stiles, it's been seven years... what makes you think he's finally sending ornaments again?"

"Because! Scott it's the EXACT same as he- or she- always did it! No address, no packaging, just the ornament in my mailbox, one of the ones I wanted but couldn't get, it HAS to be SOA!"

Scott wanted to believe his freind, he really did, but the so-called "Secret Ornament Admirer" who hadn't been active in seven years, why now?

Used to, ever since they were little kids, someone would leave an ornament in Stiles' mailbox for him every December, and they never knew who it was or why they were doing it

But not long after Stiles started his teenage years, it abruptly stopped

Every year that passed that the ornament wasn't there, Stiles' heart broke just a little bit more, but he had never given up

Some part of him had always hoped- and believed- that the secret santa- so to speak- would be back

And now he was clinging HARD to that beleif, even though it sounded more than a little unlikely from Scott's perspective

"Stiles.... I just don't want you to get your hopes up,"

"But who else would it BE Scotty? Nobody outside the two of us even KNOWS about it, besides my dad and .. Derek..."

Scott wrinkled his nose slightly, Stiles never talked about Derek without getting down

The two of them had been extremely close freinds until Derek had had to move away several years ago, they lost touch after that...

"It HAS to be the SOA Scotty," Stiles insisted again, even more firmly than before before squeezing the Superman ornament and- ...

And ofcourse it was musical

Ofcourse

"It HAS to be... and this time I'm going to find out,"

"How do you plan on doing that?"

"Scotty, if I can't do a simple tracking spell, what kind of a witch am I?"

 

~+~

 

"Ok, just a few quick groceries and then I'm getting the ingredients for that tracking spell, I'm gonna find my SOA or die trying,"

Look, there was nothing wrong with talking to himself ok?

People talk to themselves all the time and he shouldn't be excluded from that or feel bad about it, it was perfectly natural!

...

Sorta

"Right... ok... carrots..." he mumbled, glancing up from his grocery list and towards the vegetables

He needed extra this week, he was going to be trying his hand at a new recipe that Scott's girlfreind had given him

He loved Kira, really he did, but some of her recipe's kinda scared him....

Luckily though, this most recent one that he was going to try later seemed to be pretty tame....

"Stiles?"

Curiously, Stiles glanced over his shoulder...

And that's when it seemed like the entire world stopped spinning around him

_"Derek....?"_

He couldn't believe this...

After seven years of being gone, one of his closest freinds, his first crush, the guy he had been utterly IN LOVE WITH for the majority of his life....

He was finally back, and just ... standing there across the produce aisle from him

Stiles didn't even care about what it would look like at this point, he didn't care what the consequences may be, he abandoned his cart and sprinted across the aisle, slamming into his old freind

"Oh my God... oh my God.... I can't believe you're back..."

The feeling of Derek wrapping his arms around him was quite possibly the best thing Stiles had ever felt in his life

Warm, comforting, and something he had deeply, DEEPLY missed

"Are you here for good?"

"Yeah... yeah I think so,"

"Good, thank God, 'cause I could NOT handle you leaving again," he snorted, very reluctantly pulling back- not letting go, only pulling away just enough so they could both breathe

"I don't think I could handle leaving again either," Derek confessed shyly in return

"Out of curiosity.... why DID you come back? Especially after all this time,"

"Well... let's just say I didn't have much of a choice,"

That was sobering, and all of a sudden the excitement and releif and high inducing joy turned into freezing cold anxiety

"Are you ok? Are your sisters ok?"

"We're fine, we're fine I promise, it was just a scare, that's all,"

Just a scare....

Stiles didn't want to know what kind of scare it could have been, especially with it apparently having been bad enough that it caused Derek and his sisters to move back here after nearly a decade

The reason they moved away in the first place, after all, had been because hunters burned down their house and their family along with it, so for them to move back...

He suddenly hugged Derek tighter, squeezing his eyes shut with anxious sympathy

He didn't want to imagine what the hunters had done this time...

"We're ok Stiles," he promised quietly, gently rubbing his back, trying to ease his tension

Stiles just nodded slowly, still on edge but calming down considerably

"I'm glad you're back, just... sorry for the reason why,"

"Yeah... me too, but I think we're going to stay from now on, atleast... as long as we can,"

"Good, and you're going to give me your phone number, I am INSULTED that you never called or wrote or ANYTHING wile you were gone, I mean, I thought we were closer than that,"

"We were," Derek said quickly,moving a little bit closer to the edge of the aisle so that they weren't standing so much in the way of other people

"I... hope that we can be again, I'm sorry for not contacting you, I just ... wasn't sure if I should, I guess, I didn't want to hold you back, I don't know how to explain it,"

Stiles understood

He wasn't sure if he would really be able to put it into words either but... he understood, and he didn't blame Derek for not contacting him- not really, he was just sore about it

It had hurt to not hear from him, that was all

"NEVER worry about that again, ok? I want you in my life Derek Hale, even if you're on MARS,"

"I'll keep that in mind," Derek snorted teasingly

"You do that, now... give me your phone, I'm putting my new number in, and you're gonna put YOUR new number into MY phone so that I can call you later,"

Derek didn't seem to argue, a soft smile on his face as he easily pulled his phone out of his pocket and exchanged it with Stiles'

The witch swapped eagerly, hurrying to start punching his number into Derek's phone

"You uh... you've really grown up," he noted a little off-handedly

"Funny," Derek mused

"I was about to say the same thing about you,"

"I'm still pretty scrawny," Stiles shrugged back shyly

In comparison, however, Derek had gone from your typical string-bean teenager with a face still full of baby fat to a six-foot-tall wall of muscle with a beard

Out of the two of them, Derek had DEFINITELY been the one to do the growing up

"Believe me, you aren't as scrawny as you think," he said with a slight huff

Stiles wasn't entirely sure how to take that- how to process it... but he supposed it was probably a compliment

"Um... thanks..." he mumbled shyly, smiling as he handed Derek's phone back

"I... REALLY wish that we could keep talking longer, but I have to get going, I'll... I'll talk to you later tonight?" the werewolf asked softly, exchanging his phone with Stiles'

"Y-Yeah, yeah! I'm going to call you in a few hours ok?"

"Ok, I'll talk to you soon then," Derek promised, setting his phone back in his pocket and turning away from the witch

And then, just like that, as suddenly as Derek had plunged back into his life... he was gone

For a moment, he worried that the entire thing had just been a daydream, but thankfully when he checked his phone, there was Derek's number

A number that he would _definitely_ be making use of as soon as he possibly could

 

~+~

 

"No way.... Derek is back!?"

"Yeah!! I just talked to him! Look, here's his number and everything!"

Scott looked as shocked as Stiles felt to be staring down at the phone number currently displayed on the witch's cellphone screen

"That's incredible...."

"I know!!!"

"Derek is back AND your ornament guy is back, I mean, what are the odds?"

"Wait... what?"

"Derek is back on the same day that you found that ornament in your mailbox, that's a pretty huge coincidence,"

 _"Coincidence"_?

 ** _"Coincidence"_**?!

...

_**"OH. MY. GOD."** _

 

~+~

 

"You've been my Secret Ornament Admirer all this time!?"

Derek blinked, a look of confusion on his face, wich- _no_ , he did NOT get to be confused, ok?

He was the one doing this and Stiles was CERTAIN of it, so he didn't get to play stupid about it

"Your what...?"

"My Secr- ... the guy leaving ornaments in my mailbox every year!"

"Oh.... that..."

"Yeah, THAT, don't pretend it's nothing, every year those ornaments have meant the world to me and when they stopped coming I didn't know what to do with myself, now all of a sudden they're back on the EXACT same day that YOU'RE back? I don't think that's a coincidence!"

Derek moved away from the doorway, as if giving Stiles silent permission to come in, and walked a little further into the apartment

"I never knew they meant that much to you..."

"Well.... yeah, duh, I mean don't you remember when we were kids, how much I used to rave about it?"

"Yeah but.... I thought that would just be something that would fade with age, you'd eventually get over it and not really care anymore,"

"I'll always care," Stiles said quietly, shutting the door behind him as he stepped into the apartment

"I noticed," Derek replied softly

"I never meant to quit, but when we moved.... the idea of mailing it to you just wasn't as charming, you'd know it was me, it'd lose the point,"

"Hey, I don't... blame you for not keeping up with it, I'm just curious about why it started in the first place, that's all,"

Derek shrugged, sitting down on the couch behind him and rubbing the back of his neck

"I don't know... I remember the first year I did it, you were so upset because you wanted this expensive Harry Potter ornament from Hallmark... I convinced my mom to get it for you and when we went by your house to give it to you no one was home, so I left it in the mailbox, I never really thought that you- with all of your smarts and detective skills- wouldn't figure out who had left it, but you just got so excited over the concept of it being an anonymous gift that it.... became a thing,"

Ok, that was probably the cutest story that Stiles had ever heard- EVER

"And when you came here the first thing you did was leave another one for me..."

"I hoped it would make you happy, some part of me hoped that after all this time you would have figured it out and known I was in town,"

Ofcourse NOW is the time when Stiles' overly analytical brain stops working, it couldn't have been any other occasion that it went on the fritz, no, it had to be when he actually NEEDED it

"How did you always know what to get?"

"Well when we were kids it was easy, you'd always tell me what you wanted, what you had, what you hoped your ornament-guy would give you, easy..... this time I just got lucky, the woman at Hallmark knew you, I smelled your scent on her, we got to talking and she helped me out,"

Kira....

"You remembered what my scent was like?"

Derek was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, it was soft... quiet....

"How could I forget?"

And really, how was Stiles supposed to RESPOND to that?

Deciding that there was definitely no CORRECT way to do it, Stiles opted for the risky choice- because ofcourse he did

Without warning, he leaned forward, cupping Derek's face and giving him a soft, hesitant kiss

It was slow and gentle, giving him plenty of room to shake away if he wanted to but... instead the wolf only kissed back, just as slowly, just as uncertainly, but just as lovingly

"I love you," Stiles confessed breathlessly, like a weight being lifted off of his shoulders

"I've always loved you, for years and years,"

"So have I,"

And talk about unexpected- Stiles definitely hadn't expected THAT as a response

"I mean..... ever since we were kids, I've loved you, but-"

"No, no 'buts', no explanations or excuses.... it doesn't matter, we both had hang-ups and issues and you more than anyone do not need to explain or apologize for ANYTHING, understand?"

Derek looked hesitant, like he wanted to argue, but ultimately his shoulders sagged, his eyes warmed, and he seemed to accept it

"Ok,"

"Sooo.... it's been a long time since you've seen our Christmas tree, wanna-"

"I'd love to," he blurted out, cheeks slightly pink as he stood up and immediately took Stiles' hand, allowing the witch to lead him towards the door

"By the way... how did you find out where I live?"

"Tracking spell,"

Derek snorted, eyes rolling- but it was a fond, teasing eyeroll

_"Ofcourse,"_


End file.
